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Greetings to regular and new readers! Leon Trotsky and Frida Kahlo are two names of famous people in the world. Soviet politician and Mexican artist, between whom feelings flared up. How did this romance begin and how did it end?
Roman Trotsky and Frida Kahlo
One of the leaders of the October Revolution in 1917, Soviet People’s Commissar, revolutionary polemicist and writer Lev Trotsky was married twice. The second wife did not leave him until his death, despite some curious circumstances.
Since 1936, his heart belonged to another, and this novel almost cost him his sanity. His beloved was the outstanding artist Frida Kahlo, a black-eyed Mexican woman who barely gets up from a wheelchair, the star of violent bohemian parties.
Forced relocation abroad
In 1929, Leon Trotsky, who lost his main positions to Stalin, had to leave the Land of the Soviets against his will. Abroad, the passionate political player continued to issue criticism that was very unpleasant for the Soviet leadership – it is not surprising that he felt like a beast on a hunt.
They really followed him, but in the USSR they had already “hung his head over the fireplace” – sentenced in absentia to destruction.
Fate brought the persecuted exile first “to the Turkish shore”, then drove him to French, Norwegian … In 1936, the Mexican monumental painter Diego Rivera invited him to live in his country. With relief, Trotsky and his wife set off for the hot, picturesque lands.
Rivera was a staunch fan of the communist idea, fascinated by revolutionary romance. Their communication with the former Soviet People’s Commissar was easy. Trotsky knew this romantic breed very well and knew how to find a common language with such people. They became friends.
The first meeting between Trotsky and Frida Kahlo happened at the very beginning of 1937. Diego was returning from the hospital, where he was treating kidney failure, Lev Davidovich accompanied his friend. Frida met them at the port. At the house of the Rivera couple, the acquaintance continued.
Left to right: Trotsky’s wife, Frida, Trotsky
Frida managed to charm Trotsky without the slightest effort. This sickly woman, crippled by childhood polio and a terrible road accident, possessed incredible charisma and fiery temperament.
He was 58, she was 29. For him, this difference meant nothing. The artist was an intellectual with original opinions. Flirting, little notes nested between book pages … Soon Lev Davidovich finally “disappeared”. Sometimes he did not pay attention to the fact that his flirting with his beloved was taking place in front of their “second halves”!
Did Frida Love Trotsky?
In his epistolary addresses, he called her “beloved”. He repeated this word more than once or twice. Her infatuation was not at all as violent. Soon, this strange connection tired her. Despite third-party romances, her only love (difficult, bright, with an eternal boil of passions) was always her husband.
Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo
She claimed that there were two accidents in her life. The first – when the tram collided with the bus, finally crippling her, and the second was called Diego …
About Trotsky, however, she dropped in a narrow circle of friends that “the old man tired her.” And other friends heard from her a brighter (Frida loved obscenity) nickname for Trotsky – “the little goat.”
Perhaps, through this novel, Frida took revenge on her beloved Diego in a completely feminine way. She took revenge for his ineradicable penchant for adultery. The loving artist even managed to get in touch with her sister! Some scholars are inclined to believe that Frida generally did not love Trotsky, but the communist idea in his person.
Trotsky’s first biographer, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor Georgy Chernyavsky, writes that the cause of the novel is not feelings, but the famous figure of Trotsky himself. The woman saw Diego’s attitude towards the “mentor”. She, allegedly carried away by him, tried to slightly humiliate her husband, to take revenge for his “campaigns to the left”.
And Lev Davidovich seemed to have thrown off four decades. He chased her all over the patio. More precisely, he pretended that it was not difficult to catch up with a person in a wheelchair. She, of course, could not escape from him.
She, playing the caught victim, led him into the bedroom, where there was her huge orthopedic bed. Like, it’s time to look at my paintings …
Natalia found out about her husband’s betrayal
If the cuckold husband did not know for a long time what was happening under his nose, then he preferred not to pay attention. But Natalya Sedova, Trotsky’s wife, the “couple in love” did not succeed in cheating. When what was happening became obvious not only to her, the Trotsky couple had to leave Rivera’s house.
Natalia explained to her husband and even offered to leave. Lev Davidovich begged for forgiveness and asked her not to break off relations. Letters have survived, in which he asks his wife not to compete with a lady who means almost nothing to him! Natalia accepted the remorse of the prodigal husband.
The inscription on the leaflet: “I dedicate this painting to Leon Trotsky, with all my love, on November 7, 1937. Frida Kahlo, San Angel, Mexico City ”.
Frida’s parting gift to Lev Davidovich was her self-portrait with an ambiguous dedication. But, moving away from River, he “forgot” the picture there. Apparently, so that she does not interfere with the final reconciliation with Natalia.
Death of Trotsky
In 1939, Stalin already specifically insisted on the execution of an old enemy. Who could argue with him that year? On the first attempt, the assassination attempt failed.
In August 1940, an ardent Spanish communist and agent of a completely non-Spanish internal affairs body, Ramon Mercader, seizing the moment, hit Trotsky on the head with an ice pick, after which he lived no more than a day.
Strange, but his death seemed to affect the feelings of his good acquaintances. This cracked the marriage of Diego and Frida – they separated. Soon, unable to exist one without the other, they again threw themselves into each other’s arms.
Their lifelong love was a disaster romance. But the real disaster would be for them to part forever.
Leon Trotsky: biography
Additional information in this video: Leon Trotsky and Frida Kahlo
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